Ukrainian

Recorded in Ukrainian cities and in North American communities, 1900s–1930s

These sides gather Ukrainian song and dance across a long stretch of the early record era, with years on the labels running from 1909 and 1912 through the early twenties, then 1927–1930, 1935, and on to 1943 and 1946. Choruses and orchestras dominate the credits: the word orchestra (and its abbreviation) appears on two dozen titles, while polkas, dances, a march, a waltz, and a lament surface among the rest. The catalog also holds vault rows tagged Ukrainian beyond what is published here, but the issued set is the one that speaks.

Alexander Koshetz stands at the center of the choral work. The Ukrainian National Chorus under his name is heard on the 1922 sides Our Lady Of Potchaiv, with Petro Ordynski and repertoire by Mykola Leontovych, and Over The Vast Plains, with Kyrylo Stetsenko. Further Koshetz credits run through the Ukrainian Chorus on a Hutsul lullaby, Marusia And The Peacock and On the Jordan, The Parting, Kozak's Nostalgia, Miracle of Nativity, Moon in the Sky, and Oh, Wondrous Nativity. Lira Ukrainian Choir adds Where is our Dnipro and Verkhovyna from 1928; bandurist choirs contribute potpourris, dumas, and sacred pieces; the Ukrainian Opera Ensemble under H. Arkas supplies the two Kateryna excerpts.

Solo and small-ensemble voices cut through as well. Solomiya Amvrosiivna Krushelnytska, the operatic soprano, is credited on the 1928 sides Oh, Where Are You Going and Oh, the geese were flying. Meyer Kanewsky (M. Marinenko) appears on two 1912 sides, Here You Go and Hunting Cavalry. The Ukrainian National Quartet sings The Hazelnut Tree Rustled and The Finch; Yevgeny Zhukovsky and Yevgeny Zhukhovsky give Motherland and Oh, do not sleep, do not lie down in 1927. Instrumental color ranges from the 1909 sides of the Volhynian Life Guards Regiment under Vladimir Antonovich Pawelko and the 1921 Hopak and Tanec of the Columbia Ukrainska Orchestra to later hopaks, kolomyikas, and the 1935 Katerina from the Kiev Opera Theatre Orchestra.

The rights picture is uneven and should be read plainly. Only a handful fall in the bulletproof pre-1923 class; some sit in the 1923–46 gray band; the majority remain unclassified. The collection therefore mixes a thin early layer with a larger body of later and still-undated Ukrainian repertory rather than a continuous, fully dated run from the first years of recording.